Britain's department of health has waded into a bitter dispute between Nualtra, a Limerick health supplement company backed by Leslie Buckley, and a UK commercial rival whose senior management sent a forged National Health Service (NHS) email that made false claims about the Irish company.
The NHS and UK health department officials are understood to have launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sending of a forged "poison pen" email by a senior manager in Aymes International.
The fake email, which Aymes admitted in legal correspondence was written by one of its managers, was sent in 2014 to NHS-employed clients of Nualtra, whose backers also include Actavo (formerly Siteserv) chief Sean Corkery. The email purported to be a patient-safety alert and told NHS staff not to buy Nualtra products.
Aymes and Nualtra are embroiled in several legal disputes on both sides of the Irish Sea arising from alleged trademark infringement.
Neither the NHS nor the British Department of Health would make any official comment on the ongoing investigation, but the department said: “We take all allegations of misuse of the NHS brand very seriously.”
No comment
Nualtra also declined to make any comment, while Aymes founder Roger Wertheim Aymes passed all queries on the investigation to another individual, who had not immediately responded to a request for comment.
The circumstances surrounding the email were outlined in the High Court in Dublin this week as part of an ongoing trademark case taken by Aymes against Nualtra. The admission by Aymes over the email was read out in court.
In the trademark case, the UK company alleges its Nutriplete brand of oral supplements for malnourished patients could be confused with Nualtra’s Nutriplen brand. The Irish company denies there was any infringement, and has counterclaimed that the case was part of a “malicious” campaign against it.
Aymes has also admitted that Mr Aymes was behind another damaging letter about Nualtra, which was sent anonymously to the Irish company’s clients last year.
Nualtra has opened defamation proceedings against Aymes in the UK.
On Thursday, Aymes widened its legal battle here by also issuing injunction proceedings against Uniphar Wholesale, a distributor for Nualtra. Uniphar’s management did not comment.
